The Daily Whim

Sat. Oct 18, 2003

More Noise from Bin Laden

Osama has come out of his hidey-hole to grace us with another scratchy audiotape in which he says “Boo!” Of course, being a verbose psychopath, it takes him 31 minutes to do that. Nonetheless, Osama has some things to say to you, Joe and Jane America.

From the Washington Post: “In the portion addressed to Americans, the speaker said: ‘I tell the American people we will continue fighting you and we will continue martyrdom operations inside and outside the United States until you stop your injustice, and you end your foolishness.’”

“‘Jihad must continue until an Islamic government is established,’ he said.”

Oh, please, Osama, you’re hurting me … from laughter. Two years worth of laughter at your complete lack of strategic smarts. Two years of your every move reminding me of a quote from Sun Tzu; “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

Despite the occasional success of your tactics, they emit nothing but “the noise before defeat.”

One should always have a firm grasp of your enemy’s nature, and “what’s possible.” Dreaming big is generally a good thing, but to set the goal of an Islamic government ruling the US merely points out that you have no grasp at all, no sense of reality, and, on those terms, no hope of any outcome but failure. Regardless of your tactics and their success, they will never fulfill that strategy.

By all means, do continue.

As if the above leaves any doubt about his preferred form of “conflict resolution,” CNN reports “He also called on Muslims to fight those in their midst who support democratic solutions to conflicts.”

“‘There are many voices going loud and clear in Iraq—as before in Egypt, Palestine, Yemen and others—calling for peaceful, democratic solutions in dealing with infidel governments,’ the voice said, citing the Iraqi Governing Council as an example. ‘We have to warn against the danger of this methodology. This is against the Sharia (Islamic law) of God.’”

“You have no reward but in Jihad.”

There are no peaceful solutions, there is only Jihad. This is the message Osama wants to spread.

Just out of curiosity, is there anyone out there still wondering, “why do they hate us?” Or does that now seem to be a pretty irrelevant question?

Peanut Gallery

1 joseph wrote:

of course, you avoided the MOST logical conclusion of all: that whoever released that tape is NOT BIN LADEN AT ALL. because bin laden would not make such a ridiculous statement. ask yourself why, if bin laden was SO HELL BENT on making the whole world islamic, he has NEVER advocated the conversion of israelis to islam, which would be a much easier ambition than the united states, a world away.
honestly, i used to think that the people who faked these "bin laden messages and videos" were merely dumb or lazy, but the more i think of it, the more i realize that they are playing to the american public audience that has been so dumbed down as to not matter. i mean, if you're gonna run some "bin laden" tape, at least have the stooge playing bin laden to take off the us military jacket before he gets on camera, i used to think. but, you know, if that happened, some of the audience would notice THAT, and might begin to feel obligated to give the flickering image on the screen a second look. that would be enough to induce brain paralysis. so, leave the darn thing alone, and simply have dan rather say it is bin laden 20 times, and they WILL accept it without question. so, the more stupid, completely implausible statements are attributed to bin laden, the more he remains a movie character from the latest arnold schwarzanneger flick, an idiot with an iq as low as most of the audience. that way, they understand him.

"of course, you avoided the MOST logical conclusion of all: that whoever released that tape is NOT BIN LADEN AT ALL."
Whether that is the most logical conclusion is highly debatable. Sure, it might not be him. Sure, it might be some Grand Conspiracy to keep all us sheeple in line. But I'm going to go with Occam's Razor on this one, given a clear lack of evidence to the contrary; the most likely truth is that a man who plotted to kill thousands of Americans (among other things) is once again talking about killing more of us.
"because bin laden would not make such a ridiculous statement."
How exactly do you know that? Based on what evidence? Do you have additional evidence above and beyond that the rest of us have gotten via the media? Because Bin Laden has made a host of ridiculous statements, from day one (one tiny example: "There are two types of terror, good and bad. What we are practising is good terror." Ah, it's like good cancer.). He's still hung up on Muslims losing control of the Iberian peninsula before 1500, and claims the right to vengeance ... today, 500 years later. The man has not shown himself to be a model of human mental balance.
"ask yourself why, if bin laden was SO HELL BENT on making the whole world islamic, he has NEVER advocated the conversion of israelis to islam, which would be a much easier ambition than the united states, a world away."
No, he's advocated the destruction of Israel. He's said, "It is the duty of every Muslim to fight. Killing Jews is top priority." He's not a proponent of the Two State Solution. He prefers the Final Solution.
"so, the more stupid, completely implausible statements are attributed to bin laden, the more he remains a movie character from the latest arnold schwarzanneger flick, an idiot with an iq as low as most of the audience. that way, they understand him."
From what I can gather of your statement (please excuse my low IQ, enlightened one), you seem to think these ongoing Osama tapes are some kind of government generated con to keep us dumb bunnies fearful. I suppose the nearly 300 people Al Qaeda has claimed to have killed over the past year are also a government conspiracy?
You seem to believe in a government capable of flawlessly pulling off a two year global conspiracy of massive proportions, a conspiracy that would only take one tattle tale to unravel.
I believe in a government that can't balance its budget, can't keep the trains running on time, can't come up with a viable plan to rebuild Iraq during the six months preceding the war, and, in general, can't keep many of its simplest promises.
And you think they pull the strings on every puppet in the world, flawlessly and without revealing themselves.
And you were you saying that I am avoiding the most logical conclusion?

Photodude,
Of course they can't do any of the basic stuff right. That's just more of the plot. If they seemed even vaguely competent, people with low IQs like you (and I) would begin to suspect the giant conspiracy that's going on where the <strike>jews are</strike> government is secretly pulling all of the strings.
Remember, the more evidence against the conspiracy, the better the conspirators are. It's the first law of conspiracy theories.
That being said, it does seem unlikely that Bin Laden is alive. You would expect something a little bit better and more impressive if he were.
However, supposing that he is dead, the most logical conclusion is that it's a second (or third, or...) in command who is following the ancient human tradition of speaking as the most famous member of the group, in the spirit (more or less) of what the leader would have said were he alive.